Prosecutor failed in Roberts case

January 31, 2002

To the Editor:

After parolee Justin Roberts was recently sentenced for attempted murder, Otsego County Prosecutor Hesselink said in the Herald Times, "I'm happy he's out of Otsego County and into the prison system where he belongs."

That's outrageous. Roberts should have never had the opportunity to rape and murder anyone last year in Otsego County because he should have already been in prison.

Possession of stolen property, malicious destruction of property, possession of cocaine and marijuana, possession of a firearm by a felon, and conducting a counterfeiting ring altogether must not have been enough crime by one man in Hesselink's eyes to warrant prison. Instead of protecting the public by putting Roberts away for 2-10 years like he could have, Hesselink apparently looked at these felony crimes and judged Roberts to be a safe bet for a slap on the wrist, despite the rapid escalation in Roberts' gangster activity.

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Compare the 90 days Roberts served in boot camp for all the above to the nine months Guy Wilson recently got for attempted abduction, and they obviously don't compare. I'm sure it all makes perfect sense though to the "plea-bargain brothers," Hesselink and Rola.

What kind of punishment is boot camp anyway? Obviously it only helped Roberts become more capable of aggression. When he got out of camp, he kept on using and hurting people, like gangsters usually do. There was no repentance or rehabilitation, nor any chance of it in an environment devoid of talking.

How can the justice system describe a weekly report to a probation officer as "intensive supervision" for a hardened criminal like Roberts when drunk drivers commonly must submit to an early morning alcohol test every day at the sheriff s department?

Hesselink said in the Herald Times after Roberts' sentencing, "Our main concern is that she (the rape victim) will be protected. The police did a good job of following up on this quickly and getting him off the streets." That was too little, too late.

If the prosecutor's office had done their job right in the first place, Justin Roberts would have been where he belonged all along - learning his lesson in prison, and an innocent young lady would not have been hurt.